Team leader takes her 'Germs' seriously
Good Samaritan Hospital

Profile: Germaine Brooks, Registered Nurse, Team Leader
By KEN MOSIER
For Health Care Today

Germaine Brooks — better known as "Germs" — couldn't believe it when she found out she had been nominated for the Cameo of Caring award given annually by the Wright State University School of Nursing.

"I thought, 'I can't get that. I have only been a nurse for five-and-a-half years. I just can't believe that my peers feel that way about me.'

"I was in shock and I was telling my manager like, 'Guess what? They nominated me.'

"She said, 'Germs, I think you got it.' You have never seen a black (person) turn red," Brooks said with a laugh. "My whole face was red, my eyes were red. I was embarrassed because I thought this can't be and I feel like I am going to cry," she said.

Brooks is a team leader on 2900 — a step-down ward (where patients are moved out of Intensive Care and before going to a regular ward.)

Brooks started her medical career as a medical assistant and then became a Patient Care Technician, serving in that job for eight years at Maria Joseph Living Care Center.

"I used to watch the nurses a lot over there and I just love what they do," she said. "I figured I could make a difference in nursing."

Brooks enrolled and graduated from Sinclair Community College with her Registered Nurse credentials. She then enrolled at Capital University and earned her bachelor's degree.

"I will eventually go back for my master's as soon as I figure out what I want to grow up to be," she said with a smile.

She works hard on relationship-based care — trying to spend more time doing patient care. She introduces herself to the patients, tells them what interventions she would like to do that day, gives the patients their goals for that day, and makes sure she writes her phone number on the board so patients can reach her directly.

"One of the best things about nursing is just to see you up and walking and to feel that I was a part of it — knowing that, hopefully, I touched your life for the little time I had the opportunity to be with you."

A devout Christian, Brooks will also pray with those patients who want to pray. She said she believes that her life, although rocky at times, was the path chosen by God for her.

"I don't think I would be the person I am today (without that path)," she said.

	Germaine Brooks confers with cardiac care patient advocate Sherry Brown on the step-down ward at Good Samaritan Hospital.

She worked in career counseling at Wright State University's Displaced Homemaker Program and then with Goodwill Industries, where she helped disabled clients get jobs.

Afterwards, she worked for the Family Services Association, helping clients make the transition from public assistance to working independence.

She said the director of Family Services became her mentor, and she was sent to the University of Iowa to get training in family development.

"Once I got that training, it just seemed to click that this was the direction that I wanted to go — to help empower people to better their lives," she said. "It kind of became a calling. It just seemed right.

"At this point, I can't imagine myself doing anything else," she said.